News and notes from each week of NASCAR racing using a Las Vegas oddsmaking perspective

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Talladega Betting Preview: 2017 Geico 500

Junior feels the Talladega love.

Talladega Superspeedway, you big, ugly, beast of a badass. You show no favorites whether a champion or an also-ran; your wrath is dished out equally to all class of drivers. You're such a beast that NASCAR had to find ways to slow the cars down. You're wide high-banks made them go too fast. Yes, Talladega Superspeedway, you're a big, beautiful, 2.66-miles of awesomeness. The stage is yours for the 10th race of the NASCAR Cup season, have a great show!

I'm not one of those fans that roots for crashes and big pile-ups, but I can say that the possibility of it happening at any moment in a spectacular fashion like only Talladega can provide has me at the edge of my seat in anticipation like no other race track. It's the most amazing high-speed traffic jam in automobile history with the drivers sometimes stacked up in four-wide formations. It's bumper-to-bumper at 200 miles per hour.

If one driver slips or makes the wrong move it can take out half the field in a chain reaction. It is in this randomness that forces me to change my weekly wagering patterns. I play more drivers to win and I rarely play any driver match-ups, unless getting obscene plus-money on a driver. Most of the cars are equal because of the restrictor-plates, but a few teams have proven to have a slight edge over the past three seasons and the package for these cars have been about the same for the past three seasons.

So between the random wrecks which can take away my driver bet at any moment, no big edge with the cars and practices and qualifying not meaning anything, these type of races are really just crap shoots. Your bet is kind of like one of those scratch-off lottery cards, but with better odds. Formula's used for rating the drivers are different for Talladega -- very vanilla based more on past history.

Because of the randomness, the books usually give a fair shake on the favorites while chopping off the long shot odds. Anything can happen with plates on.

The Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook has last week's winner Joey Logano as the 7/1 co-favorite to win along with Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin. Every other driver is 10/1 or higher beginning with six-time Talladega winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. who announced last week that 2017 would be his last Cup season.